Archive for the ‘ken rosenthal’ tag

By now I think we’ve all seen the Adam LaRoche story. Short version: Chicago president Kenny Williams asked LaRoche to not have his kid at the clubhouse every day and LaRoche retired instead of agreeing to Williams’ terms.

Is there more to this story? Oooh yeah. Read this deadspin.com piece, which has a ton of tweets from MLB reporters Jeff Passan and Ken Rosenthal (basically two of the most respected and connected guys covering the game today, in case you doubt a story at deadspin). My take-aways:

LaRoche had it IN HIS CONTRACT that he could bring his kid to the ballpark every day.

The kid had his own frigging locker and (as he did in Washington) did “clubhouse attendant” stuff to earn his keep.

Except that those un-named players apparently were too afraid to voice their opinion as the team threatened to boycott games the next day.

The players, the GM and the Manager all disagreed with the decision.

As is noted in the deadspin piece, reports from the meeting the players had with the President were perhaps the most angry I’ve ever read of a team being with its management. Its not every day where a player like Chris Sale tells his boss’ boss’ boss to “get the f*ck out of the clubhouse and don’t come back.”

My take?

I think Williams continued a sh*tty tradition of tone-deaf management out of the Chicago White Sox, whose owner Jerry Reinsdorf was the leading voice in pushing for limiting amateur bonuses in the last CBA in order to save a buck. LaRoche hit .217 last year and was owed $13M this year: if LaRoche hit .290 with 30 homers last year do you still think Williams would have done what he did?

You may say (as others like noted “get off my lawn” dinosaur Bob Nightengale) something like “who else gets to take their kid to work every day?” And you’d be right … except that nobody reading this works for a major league baseball club. How often have you heard players say that “its different” being in a clubhouse than being in an office? Do you agree? I do; this isn’t a normal work place. MLB teams already HAVE kids around every day; they’re called bat boys. So what’s the real difference here? Its ok for a bat boy to be with the team for 6 straight months but not ok for a player’s son? These aren’t “workers” as much as they’re “entertainers” and the concept of a “workplace” isn’t exactly the same. The Nats built a day care center so their wives and kids could come to the games, and that’s good business.

Furthermore, there’s this: these guys constantly talk about being “a family” when talking about the team chemistry. That’s because they basically spend 10-12 hours a day for 7 straight months together. Working together, living together, showering together, traveling together and eating together. Is it that big of a stretch to hear about people’s kids being at the games? How many times have you read about kids being at ball parks in your life? A hundred? More?

The timing of this is also ridiculous; leave out for a moment that LaRoche’s contract stated he could bring his kid to the clubhouse (the kid had his OWN LOCKER!) and leaving out the point that LaRoche is a union guy (can you say player grievance coming?). Why would Williams choose to have this fight 4 weeks into spring training? If it was really that big of a deal, why not address it in the off-season? I mean, can you imagine being a White Sox fan right now? How does this situation make the White Sox better, in any conceivable way, for the season that starts in two weeks? Now you have a near player mutiny, a popular veteran quitting out of principle, and you probably have more than a few players demanding to be traded. Great way to prepare for the season!

If I’m the owner of the White Sox I fire Williams today and beg LaRoche to come back; its the only way he has a shot of salvaging the 2016 season. I mean, the goal of the game is to win, and for me the only way to “fix” the massive clubhouse issue they’ve needlessly introduced is to get rid of the guy who caused it. Of course, maybe he doesn’t give a sh*t; his season tickets are sold and he’s raking in Chicago RSN money irrespective of whether his team wins 90 games or loses 90. Welcome to modern baseball ownership, where tanking is a-OK, nobody has to show their books and billionaire owners keep making more and more money every year.

Qualifying Offer (QO) extension time has come and past, and a record 20 players received the 15.8M one-year contract tender for 2016.

The Nationals, as has been typical, went the conservative route and only gave a QO to the two players they expect to reach significant, multi-year deals. Jordan Zimmermann and Ian Desmond. They opted not to extend offers to their other 7 free agents, nor to the two guys who a year ago you would have thought to be locks to get one (Doug Fister and Denard Span).

(coincidentally: am I the only one who thinks that the Nats actually have 9 free agents on their end-of-year 40-man roster? Zimmermann, Desmond, Span, Fister, Uggla, McLouth, Janssen, Thornton and Johnson. Why is it that all the other stories I read only list the first 8? Is Reed Johnson actually not a FA? Look at the Nats XLS on Cots‘; Johnson is absolutely listed as a FA, as are 6 others, plus the two with options that we’ve already declined. Am I wrong?)

Anyway. I’m on record as saying that the Nats should have extended 3 QOs to include Span. Yet not for the first time, the team has opted not to offer a QO to a guy who clearly would have declined it. And this will be the third time they have made a crucial mistake as an organization and gave away a high draft pick needlessly. Edwin Jackson was always going to sign a multi-year deal and the Nats inexplicably failed to give him one. Same with Adam LaRoche, who clearly still had a market for his services and would have garnered another pick.

I’m not sure exactly what Scott Boras seems to “have” on the Lerners … but not for the first time they’ve cut him a break and done him and his clients an inexplicable favor. So, what exactly do the Nats get out of this? Span should send the team management a fruit basket for not destroying his FA market this coming off-season. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Span didn’t hire Scott Boras so that he could hand over a commission check on a gift of a $15.8M one year deal. Span was never going to accept that QO. Just dumb. But hey, it isn’t exactly the first dumb thing this front office/ownership group has done this offseason…

So, of the 20 players who did get a QO … the annual question remains. Will someone actually take it this year? Just as a reminder, here’s the entire list of QO-offered players since the system began, with their eventual contract offer and a judgement of whether or not the QO “hurt” their next contract. Eight in 2012, 13 in 2013, and 12 after last season. That’s 33 total players and so far NOT ONE has signed the deal. I’m still not entirely convinced that there’s not a Player’s Union-wide conspiracy going on where they decline the QOs en masse because they don’t agree with it for some reason. Certainly it seems like the next CBA will eliminate it, since it has clearly done little except harm the market for FAs.

Here’s a quick opinion on the 20 guys who got QOs and what I think may happen (AAV = Average Annual Value on their contract):

Easily surpass AAV of $15.8M and get monster deals: Greinke, Heyward, Zimmermann, Upton, Gordon: All of these guys are marquee free agents, are the kind of guys you give up a pick to sign gladly, and will sign for significant money well eclipsing the QO AAV or guaranteeing a significant amount of money (like, in the $80M+ range).

Will sign multi-year deals with significant money, even if AAV is “only” at or near $15.8M: Desmond, Davis, Iwakuma, Gallardo, Samardzija: I can see Desmond doing 4/$60 or something like that in New York, I can see the two pitchers getting nice deals in the 3/$45 range and I can see Davis banking a short high AAV deal. For me, even Samardzija’s 2015 decline won’t scare off some teams, especially teams out west in pitcher’s parks and especially since he could be a nice 2nd-tier deal of an arm once you get past the significant FA pitchers.

Might not get $15.8M AAV, but will sign for at least 2/$25M or 3/$40M or something: Lackey, Chen, Kendrick, Weiters, Anderson: Most of these guys probably take less AAV but guarantee more total cash, like several guys did last off-season. I’ll bet some of these guys re-sign with their current teams too (Anderson, maybe Kendrick, maybe Lackey too). The draft pick compensation likely scares off some teams here, so their market will be limited, but if a team has a protected first pick they might be ok giving up a second rounder for these guys. Or, a team like Washington, which will get two supp-1st picks, may be willing to give up its 1st rounder to just “drop down” 10-15 slots to sign these guys.

So that leaves more than a few guys who might be crazy not to sign the offer sheet:

Rasmus: made just $8M this year; does anyone really think he’s getting significantly more in FA on an AAV basis? Plus, who is going to give up a 1st or even a 2nd round pick to sign him? And he hit just .238 in a hitter’s park. This seems like a “dare” move from the Houston front office, known in the industry to be just a bit too clever for their own good sometimes. As in, “I dare you to break with your union and take this deal.” If there really is some un-spoken agreement among players to never take a QO, he’s a great test case.

Fowler: Similar situation to Rasmus ($9.5M this year): he’s not the kind of guy you commit significant money to, is he? He does have value in a very small CF market, so perhaps you make the argument he belongs in the same conversation as Lackey or Kendrick.

Murphy: made just $8M this year and hit half as many homers in the post season as he had all year. So clearly he made himself some cash with his post-season exploits .. but enough to double his pay on an AAV basis? A shrewd move from the NY front office, pressing the issue here with Murphy.

Kennedy: $9.8M this year but has been awful. Might not even be a 5th starter, and has Scott Boras as an agent. Who’s giving up a 1st rounder to make him their 5th starter? Who’s signing him to a long term deal? Without the QO stigma, I could have seen him signing a 1yr/$8M deal but not much else. How can he possibly not take this offer, a gift of a pillow contract to re-gain some value for next off-season? One reason: his agent. Is Kennedy going to be the next Stephen Drew or Kendrys Morales, who gets talked into hitting the open market by his aggressive agent only to find himself sitting until next year’s draft passes since nobody’s willing to give up a high round pick to sign him?

Estrada: he made just $3.9M in 2015 and has made just $10m TOTAL in his career, yet got offered $15.8M for next season after a breakout year in Toronto. Uh, why wouldn’t he take this QO? He’s on the wrong side of 30, would more than double his CAREER earnings with one stroke of the pen, and if he repeats his performance could get a 3-year deal taking him past age 35 to lock up his financial future. This is easily the craziest QO we’ve seen yet and will be the biggest test of the system.

It just seems to me that this last group of players are either going to re-sign with their own team or are going to get really screwed in the open market. Look at that last group of 5 players and tell me who’s giving up a 1st round pick to sign them?

Good further reading on the same topic:

Grant Brisbee‘s analysis of who is getting “hosed” by the QO this year.

On the plus side, the Phillies pick up all of his remaining 2015 salary (roughly $4.5M), and Papelbon pre-negotiated his 2016 option at a slightly lower figure ($11M with $3M deferred). This is no 2-month rental; this is a strategic decision to go with him for the next two years. So in that respect, what the Nats get versus what they gave up is pretty durn good. Pivetta is a decent prospect who had a great first half for Potomac and just earned a promotion to AA (where he’s gotten hit around a bit in his first couple of starts). But in terms of what the team is giving up, Pivetta is a “minor prospect” (mostly on the outside of our top 10 lists) and is perhaps no better than 13th or so on our starter depth chart (just off the top of my head, Scherzer, Strasburg, Zimmermann, Fister, Gonzalez, Ross, Roark, Cole, Jordan, Hill, Treinen, Espino, Voth and Giolito ahead of him), so the Nats trade from a surplus/depth for a position of need.

As a side-effect of the acquisition, AAA catcher Dan Butler was DFA’d to make room on the 40-man roster. Butler has been struggling in AAA and may pass through waivers, but if he doesn’t suddenly the Nats have zero catcher depth on the active roster. So that’s a risk i’m surprised they took (if it were me, I could have named several other guys I would have risked versus Butler first).

My concern with this deal is more on the non-quantifiable side. What message does this send to your team? Drew Storen has been *excellent* this year, has remade his mechanics and (as noted elsewhere) has the 2nd best ERA of any reliever in the game over the last two years. He’s been just as good a closer as Papelbon this year, and for his troubles gets demoted out of the closer spot. Storen’s future compensation is *directly* tied to the number of saves (however arbitrary and useless that statistic may be) he earns, and now the team has told him “hey, we know you’ve been awesome but too bad you’re no longer going to have the opportunity to earn saves and therefore we’ll argue against you in arbitration to that end.” Its no wonder Storen was immediately quoted as wanting to “explore his options” with his representation.

Lets also just say that it would not surprise this observer in the least if Storen’s performance fell off a cliff in the coming months.

You can argue that winning creates clubhouse chemistry; that’s your perogative. You can talk about how the old Yankees “25 men, 25 cabs” had no problem winning and you can disclaim the chemistry factors that seemed to be in play with recent teams like the 2013 Red Sox or last year’s Royals. Fair enough. You can make the argument that these guys are all highly paid and should just accept whatever role is given to them … but lets be honest here; MLB players are human, they have egos, and (especially in the case of a reliever) they want to be the closer. More to the point, when they do everything management asks of them and still get replaced, its hard not to blame them for being disgruntled. This isn’t like when the Nats demoted John Lannan: Storen didn’t get beat out in spring training; he’s been absolutely stellar for the past two years.

Is this yet another reaction to Storen’s post-season record? Lets all say it together: “short sample sizes.” Storen has a grand total of 5 1/3 post-season innings. Papelbon’s numbers in the post season are great (a 1.00 ERA in 27 innings), but he hasn’t pitched in October in 6 years. Clayton Kershaw has a 5+ ERA in the post-season and nobody’s talking about replacing him. You look for excellence in the regular season and hope it plays out in the post-season.

Two years ago, the management over-reacted to Storen’s post-season performance by over-paying (and burning a first round pick) on a closer in Rafael Soriano who, it should be noted, was himself demoted from the closer role in favor of the man he replaced by the time the deal was done. Lets just hope that we’re not standing here in September of 2016 with Papelbon and his waning velocity ballooning to a 4+ ERA in his walks year with the ever-steady Storen right back in the same role…

I would have much preferred the team find some middle-to-later innings relievers to strengthen things in the 7th and 8th innings and not upset what Storen has established. But it isn’t my team. I just hope Storen can take the high road (much like Tanner Roark has been forced to do) and goes back to being a team player.

Post-publishing update: Joe Posnanskiwrote a column 2 weeks onward, crucifying Rizzo and this trade (calling it “The Worst trade of the Season”) for its intangible impact on the team, echoing many of the same sentiments expressed here.

Xavier Cedeno, he who has faced exactly 15 batters this season, was DFA’d ahead of the Tuesday 4/14/15 game as first reported by Mark Zuckermanon twitter. In those 15 batters, he gave up 3 hits, 2 walks, one HBP, struck out 4 and got the other 5 guys out somehow. Oh and he threw two wild pitches. Those numbers totaled a 6.00 ERA, a 1.667 WHIP and an even higher FIP. But more importantly, it spelled his DFA (since he’s out of options and until a week ago everyone thought he had beaten out Jerry Blevins for the bullpen).

I also reference the acerbic comments of others on twitter: from Half Street Heart Blog: “A few days ago, Xavier Cedeno was Matty’s go-to guy with the based loaded and nobody out w/ a 1-run lead. Now he’s off the roster.”

It is hard to argue with this observation because its true. Yesterday we were wondering why the heck Matt Williams was pitching Cedeno for the 4th time in 5 days despite being 5 runs down in a losing cause … today he’s DFA’d. What he heck is going on??

In January, I never would have thought that Cedeno had a shot at the team anyway … but I also wouldn’t have thought the team would have dumped Blevins for a 4-A outfielder who we probably didn’t need in a move that smacked of pettiness over the outcome of the off-season’s arbitration result (I reference Ken Rosenthal‘s tweet on the matter here). Den Dekker is the TENTH outfielder on our current 40-man roster; the only “real” infielder who isn’t already on the MLB bench in the entire system is Wilmer Difo. To say that the team has a slight imbalance of players on its 40-man right now is an understatement.

Anyway. To the good news. Long-serving and well-deserving RHP reliever Rafael Martin has been called up, added to the 40- and 25-man and will join the team in Boston. He more than earned this spot with his excellent 2014 numbers, and his career path is the stuff of movies. I say bravo to the Nats for finally recognizing his great minor league performances, and I hope he sticks around.

A couple of years ago, the Arizona Diamondbacks curiously traded their #1 draft pick from the previous year (Trevor Bauer) for a package of players that centered on the underwhelming Didi Gregorius. I posted about the Bauer trade when it happened (Dec 2012) and, frankly, laid the blame at the kid’s feet for working his way out of town.

But since then, we’ve had other incidents involving Arizona players on their way out the door. To wit:

In Jan 2013, the team moved its star Justin Upton for (again) a questionable return (centered on Martin Prado), and the litany of history between the player and the team was documented in the trade recap here via azfamily.com. This Deadspin link also references Ken Rosenthal‘s reporting, which detailed the team’s issues with Upton: he didn’t play with enough “intensity.”

This past July, the team traded starter Brandon McCarthy to the Yankees for a middling Vidal Nuno. McCarthy’s splits before/after the trade? He was 3-10 with a 5.01 ERA before the move, 7-5 with a 2.89 ERA after. And that’s moving to the AL East. The apparent reason? Arizona was actively discouraging him from using his effective cut-fastball.

Why do I bring this up? Because, in the wake of the off-season Wade Miley trade to Boston … guess what? Nick Piecoro of the Arizona Republic reported that Miley and the Arizona training staff clashed in the past, and he thinks it led to his out-ster from the team.

Arizona finished 64-98 last season, worst in the majors. Its no wonder they’re so bad right now, given the rate at which they’ve traded young, good, controllable assets for mediocre and expensive ones. They canned their entire coaching staff last off-season (aka, the “King of Grit” Kirk Gibson) and their GM (Kevin Towers) as a result, hiring Tony La Russa as their senior-most baseball executive and then Dave Stewart as their rookie GM. Perhaps the hope is that this new regime will stop openly clashing with its players and will value production on the field versus compliance in the clubhouse.

Of course, Stewart didn’t help his case by plainly stating ignorance of analytics to the press this past off-season. And the new regime’s moves this past off-season didn’t exactly inspire confidence: their major move being the $68.5M signing of Cuban Yasmany Tomas, who apparently can’t actually play 3B and may start in the minors. And its hard to look at any of the slew of trades they made and say “wow, that was a winner move.” You almost have to wonder how they’re going to screw up the #1 pick in the 2015 draft this coming June.

All the better for the rest of the NL West, which features two teams with very clear playoff intentions (LA and SD) along with a third (SF) who has only won three World Series in the last five years.

another post-posting update: Stewart essentially “sold” two players to Atlanta, including their 2014 1st rounder Touki Toussaint so as to rid themselves of Bronson Arroyo‘s deal. When questioned about the deal, Stewart was quoted as doubting Toussant’s velocity readings, saying that “Toussant didn’t throw 96.” And, as noted here, Stewart is right: Tousannt doesn’t throw 96; he throws 98. Toussant was well known to be mid-90s as a 16 year old two years prior to his drafting out of high school. And now Toussant is doing things like this: throwing 6 no-hit innings in low-A for his new team Atlanta. Thanks Dave!

Yet another post-posting update: the organization left $1.7M on the table in the 2015 draft process, a ridiculously large amount of money, enough to buy at least 4 separate 3rd-4th round talents later in the draft. Just an amazing example of incompetence.

And there’s more! Arizona was the sole team in baseball that didn’t make move at the Trade deadline in 2015, despite clearly being out of the NL West and despite having several players approaching free agency who would have made perfect sense to trade. Their main rumored interest was in Aroldis Chapman (a high-priced closer on a rebuilding team?) And, he threw the SD GM under the bus for his trade request … which was apparently mentioned in gest.

8/18/16 posting update: Keith Law absolutely kills the Arizona management with this take-down of the GM and President. And nothing in his article is really debatable. Both the GM and President have pending expiration dates on their contracts … and Law wonders if they’ll renew or start over.

Well, we finally got a manager, so hopefully MLB.com Nats beat reporter Bill Ladson will stop taking “Who do you think the next Nats Manager” questions. I’m not ruling it out though Nonetheless, here’s the latest Ladson inbox, dated 11/5/13. As always, I write my response before reading his and edit questions for clarity.

Q: Will Davey Johnson still play a role in the organization?

A: Who cares? Does it matter? Whatever role Davey Johnson could play would have so little significance on the on-field play of the 2014 team that I find it useless to even speculate. I’m sure the Nats offered him a limited role out of respect, and I’d assume Johnson accepted it as long as it allowed him to go relax in Florida for a while, hoping another managerial job opens up. Ladson expects he’ll consult to the team and advise on trades and FA signings because he’s such a great “talent evaluator.” Hey Bill; if Johnson was such a great talent evaluator why exactly did he run Danny Espinosa out for so many at-bats? Why didn’t he push to make a change in the rotation when it was clear that Dan Haren wasn’t pitching at even a replacement-level? How come he didn’t see the rising talent that made such a difference in September?

A: A good question. After going into the 2013 season with almost no high-minors starting pitching depth, you have to think the team is going to cover themselves for 2014. So count on there being more seemingly worthy candidates than roles going into spring training 2014. The answer to this question may depend on payroll issues: right now Cots has the Nats with about $80M committed for 2014 prior to its arbitration cases, which MLBtraderumor’s Matt Swartz is estimating will run the team another $37.3M (which honestly I think is slightly low). That’s roughly $117M in payroll before even looking at a single FA candidate. You could save some of this money with non-tenders or trades (Tyler Clippard at $6.2M is a candidate to be moved), but not enough to get an impact player.

Will the ownership group expand the payroll even more for 2014, knowing their “window” with this group of players is shrinking? Or will they stay the course and know that nearly $30M of mostly underperforming veteran FAs (LaRoche, Span, Soriano) come off the books after next season, allowing them to reload in the FA market towards 2015 and beyond?

If ownership frees up some cash, by trade/non-tender or by expansion of the payroll limit, there are FA pitchers to be had. I’ve seen more than one pundit with the Nats linked to Matt Garza, but I don’t see it; I don’t think he’s worth what people seem to think he’s going to get (4 yrs/$60M). More likely is the team going with a modification of the Edwin Jackson/Dan Haren plan and getting a reclamation project in the ilk of Josh Johnson on a one-year/low paying contract with big incentives.

Less predictable is the trade acquisition. Nobody saw the Gio Gonzalez trade coming until it happened, and something similar could happen now. The team is in the same position generally this off-season as it was in 2011 in terms of having a slight surplus of closer-to-the-majors arms and bats and could put together a similar package. If we moved Brad Peacock, Tommy Milone, Derek Norris and A.J. Cole for Gonzalez in 2011 (or in otherwords, a good-looking starter with great initial call-up numbers, a solid lefty starter who dominated AAA, a decent looking catcher prospect and a high-leverage low-minors prospect) would a similar package of something like Tanner Roark, Nathan Karns, Eury Perez and Robbie Ray fetch a #2 starter in the trade market? Oakland isn’t facing the same issue they were in 2011 with any of its pitchers, so the most likely eager-to-make-a-trade GM in Billy Beane is out. But that being said, they’re paying Brett Anderson a LOT of money for Oakland’s payroll (roughly 1/6th of their payroll for next year), and he could be moved. Anderson wouldn’t cost nearly this much in prospects, but would be a huge risk; he hasn’t pitched a full season in years.

Meanwhile everyone knows Tampa is looking to move David Price, but any trade for him has to start with your two best prospects and build from there, and the Nats are just back to the point where the farm system is looking respectable again. I’m not sure the Nats are going to be willing to give up what the Rays will demand. The Nats have done business lately with the Chicago Cubs, who may look to move the arbitration-eligible Jeff Samardzija, but they’d be selling incredibly low on him after his poor 2013. Lastly the Tigers reportedly are considering moving Max Scherzer, who enters his last year of arbitration looking for a big pay day and withKen Rosenthal reporting that the Nats are his best fit, but I just cannot see purposely moving a Cy Young winner and disrupting a team that continues to be one of the best in the AL.

With no FA acquisitions and no trades, I see a competition next spring that likely sees Ross Detwiler in the 4th spot (no options, theoretically healthy again), Tanner Roark in the 5th spot (he keeps his spot until he shows that his remarkable September numbers are human), Ross Ohlendorf as the spot starter/long man in the MLB pen, and Taylor Jordan-Nathan Karns being the #1 and #2 starters in AAA Syracuse. Some speculate that Detwiler would lose out to both Roark and Jordan and become a lefty out of the pen … but I don’t see that. I’m not counting it out, but I don’t see that happening if he’s healthy.

With any significant FA acquisition or trade, you line up Stras-Gio-Zimmermann-New Acquisition and Detwiler to start off 2014, just as you did in 2013. Roark and Ohlendorf likely work out of the MLB pen and Jordan/Karns still in AAA. Maybe Karns comes up and works the 7th inning as well, while Jordan remains starter insurance plan #1.

Ladson also mentions Price, also mentions what I do about the difficulties lining up, thinks the Nats will acquire someone for #4 spot and then says Roark has the inside edge on #5 spot, even over Detwiler (who he thinks could move to the bullpen).

Q: What did you think about the Nationals hiring Williams as manager last week?

A: Well, I guess Ladson had to get in one last question about the managerial situation. My take: I like the move, I think Matt Williams‘ combination of successful playing career and MLB coaching experience will instantly give him the respect of the veterans and the rookies on this team. He will get this team in line, he will bring some old-school notions to this team and won’t back down in a fight (as Johnson clearly did with Atlanta all year). I think he will give this team the spine it lacked and will do nothing but help move the team forward.

One other opinion; I do see some critics who say that Williams’ lack of direct managerial experience at any level hurts him. I say BS; he was a major league coach for four years, working underneath a successful, respected manager. He presumably contributed to the decision making process, got to witness first hand how decisions worked out, got to decide for himself how he would have handled situations, and in some ways I think this experience supercedes being a manager of a lower-level ball-club where there’s no egos and just a bunch of kids who you can cower into submission.

Ladson says its too early to tell, but that Williams had a great news conference. Honestly I didn’t really expect much of an answer here from an employee of MLB.

Q: What is Christian Garcia‘s status? Will he join the Nationals in 2014? He was a great late addition to the bullpen in 2012.

A: He’s finally healthy, and pitching in the Mexican Winter League. I think the team sees the error of its ways in trying to convert the injury-riddled pitcher to being a starter. He’s working as a reliever in winter ball, and I hope to see him continue to work as a reliever in the spring. I’d love to see him earn a spot in the bullpen; lord knows the team could use one more reliable arm in the 6th/7th inning (Ryan Mattheus needs to be on guard; your spot is in jeopardy for 2014). Ladson agrees with everything I’ve said.

Q: Do you think the Nationals will trade Danny Espinosa, Tyler Moore and Steve Lombardozzithis winter or sign a couple free agents? I believe they need a lefty middle reliever, a left-handed bat coming off the bench and a veteran backup catcher.

A: Trading any of those three guys after the seasons they had at the plate would be selling incredibly low. So no, I don’t think any of them get moved unless they’re part of a larger deal. Espinosa needs to get healthy, learn how to hit left handed, and build trade value. I believe he can be a valuable player for someone, somewhere, just based on his incredible defense. But he has to hit better than .150. Moore needs to return to his 2012 power ways, but I still see him as a useful player who we have no reason to trade; he still has options, he’s still pre-arbitration and thus he’s cheap. Lombardozzi is the quintessential utility guy; he can play 2nd, 3rd, left, right. You have to have one of these guys around … and if he can’t hit, it is’t going to kill you. But when this player gets 300 ABs (as Lombardozzi got last year) … then you have a problem. This is why the team got Scott Hairston and why they’re likely to give some looks to Zach Walters in 2014. Maybe the team looks for a cheap veteran to replace Chad Tracy but i’d hope for a bit more positional flexibility.

I can also see the team kicking the tires on a veteran lefty but don’t entirely see the need; Ian Krol may have faltered down the stretch but he was mostly good. Abad was good. Cedeno was good. We have all these guys locked up. You see who wins a competition and switch them out if they’re ineffective.

Ladson thinks Espinosa is getting traded no matter what, and has played his last game as a National.

Q: Are Gold Glove Awards given with consideration to the offensive stats of a player? Otherwise, how could Denard Span miss out on the award this year?

A: They’re not supposed to be … but we all know old habits die hard and bit players who are awful at the plate often times have a hard time getting a Gold Glove. Span as it turned out led all NL centerfielders in one defensive metric (Total Zone Total Fielding Runs), but I have zero problem with the NL winner Carlos Gomez. Ladson says he was “shocked” that Span didn’t win, and then used “# of errors” as a metric. Poor form Ladson; you need to reference some of the advanced stats in question. Gomez led the NL in Defensive Runs Saved, one of the two major defensive metrics. So your argument fails. Span may have great range, but he wasn’t best in the Ultimate Zone Ratings measurement either. See the Fielding Awards spreadsheet link to the right to see all the leaders in one place.

Ortiz is the 2013 WS MVP and drinks from very large bottles. Photo AP via usatoday.com

So, as we wind down the 2013 World Series, one in which Boston star David Ortiz performed at levels rarely seen and earned the WS MVP as a result, a familiar narrative is sprouting up. Stop me if you’ve heard it;

“David Ortiz is a known PED user.”

And thus his accomplishments (and eventual Hall of Fame case) are forever tarnished.

Here’s the thing: what “proof” exactly is there that David Ortiz used PEDs?

As far as I can tell, the source for the allegations against David Ortiz is this NY Times article, dated July 30 2009 by writer Michael Schmidt. Go ahead and read that article and tell me where exactly there is definitive proof of any positive test? Here’s a couple of salient quotes from the article which encompass the “proof” that compelled this writer to forever trash the reputations of these players:

“…according to lawyers with knowledge of the results.”

“The lawyers spoke anonymously because the testing information was under seal by a court order. “

“The lawyers did not identify which drugs were detected.”

Hmm. This sounds awfully thin to me. Anonymous lawyers who claimed to have “knowledge of the results” of the 2003 surveys, who did not go on record and didn’t identify the supposed substance. AND, to make matters even worse, these lawyers were knowingly breaking federal laws by disclosing information that was a) supposed to be confidential and b) at the time under seal.

Why would anyone believe this?

In the same story, Ortiz “confirmed the report” but if you read exactly what he said, he didn’t admit to testing positive. He “confirmed that the union told him that the report was true.” That’s not an admission of usage of a PED. That’s just acknowledging that he was told his name was apparently on some list. And as noted later on (and referenced in the link at the bottom of this blog), MLB and the Union have since stated that some players on “the list” never tested positive; they were just on the list as having being tested. Or even worse (as is noted in the above link), “… in 2003, legally available nutritional supplements could trigger an initial ‘positive’ test under our program.”

Think about that. Ortiz could have been drinking some supplement that was legal then, is legal now, but which triggered a positive test. Ortiz has vehemently denied initially or ever using anything illegal whenever it has been brought up since. Of course, those denials run shallow considering that every PED-suspected user denies in the same way.

Ortiz does not appear in The Mitchell Report; go ahead and search its 409 exhausing pages and there’s no mention of him. Nor does Manny Ramirez (ed; corrected after the fact; i had written Manny Rodriguez), who was also outed in the 2009 NY Times article. Ramirez’ reputation has since been sullied through his own stupidity and multiple subsequent positive tests … but I can’t help but wonder if Ortiz wasn’t being unfairly targeted by some faceless “lawyer with knowledge” who could very well have been a die-hard New York Yankees fan (this is the New York Times after all, and these proceedings were all conducted in New York City) with an axe to grind.

You may think this is a cynical approach. You may have blind faith that the journalist in question took his “sources” to his editors, who should have vetted the information and made the decision to publish based on such anonymous quotes. And to that I say, you’re a fool if you think that all journalists are prim and proper and squeaky clean in terms of their morals. You don’t know these people, you don’t know who their sources are, and you don’t know the motivations behind the breaking of federal laws in order to … do what exactly? Purposely tarnish the career of a player who didn’t do anything to anybody, and who apparently may not have even used the damn PEDs in the first place.

I find it troubling, that a man’s career, legacy and reputation are basically shot because of some unconfirmed report. If this was in a court of law, the “evidence” against Ortiz would be considered so thin that any right-minded judge would dismiss the case outright before it even began.

Ortiz commented on this topic in an SI piece recently and I can’t help but agree with his take on the situation. He felt helpless, he (claims) not to have ever heard anything about a positive test until his name appears in the New York Times. He claims that he’s asked repeatedly for additional proof, for the name of the drug he supposedly tested positive for … and has never been told! Think about that. The people who hold the evidence that has destroyed his legacy are refusing to give him details about his own test and his own career.

I’m not the only one with this view: Ken Rosenthal discusses many of the same facts in this May 2013 article.

Anyway. I feel Ortiz may have been unfairly thrown under the bus in the post Steroid-era mania of discovery, and judging a man based on “proof” this weak continues to trouble me. Feel free to comment if you have better information than I do about his supposed “positive test.”

I guess that’s the biggest question mark in the wake of yesterday’s deal, where the Nats released the longest serving member of their franchise Roger Bernadina and traded for a decent bench player in David DeJesus and at least $2.5M worth of contract obligations for PTBNL.

Update: Ken Rosenthal is speculating that the Nats brass may have made this trade because of a “waiver wire mistake.” DeJesus is apparently already back out on waivers again. If this is the case … then I’ll really criticize Mike Rizzo here. If you put in a claim on a Chicago Cubs guy, a team CLEARLY shedding any and all payroll, you have to think they were going to accept the claim. There seems to be more to this story that seems to cast the Nats front office in a questionable light.

For me, Bernadina was a case study in a guy who was just slightly below a good MLB hitter. He wasn’t a 4-A guy; he showed that in spurts he could hit in the majors. But when given full time opportunities in 2010 and 2011 he just couldn’t get it done.

An, in yet another comment that seems to indicate how out of touch Davey Johnson is this season, he was quoted by Amanda Comak as saying that Bernadina is “still kind of a young player” as part of his explanation for why he just couldn’t get it going this season. Really? Kind of a young player? Aged 29. Played in the majors parts of 6 seasons, has more than 1300 major league plate appearances to go with another 3300 plate appearances in the minors, and playing professionally in our system for a decade. Sorry Davey, he’s not a young player anymore. He is what he is; a streaky hitter who was probably lucky last year and unlucky this year, who had his shots to be the full time CF here and just couldn’t hit enough to stick. Great fielder, by all accounts a great guy.

Why release him instead of DFA him? Probably a classy move by the Nats here; by outright releasing him there’s no waiver process, no shenanigans that have been going on related to teams trying to rig the waiver/DFA process. Bernadina was almost guaranteed to be non-tendered this coming off-season anyway, so why not make him a FA now and give him a shot to catch right back on with a team right away?

ps: useless programming note: this is the 600th post at NationalsArmRace! Too bad its on such a down note.

Update: 2 days after his release, Bernadina has signed with Philadelphia after receiving calls from “10 teams.” Good for him; he should get playing time in Philly and maybe he can parlay that into another MLB gig elsewhere.

I just noticed this little report float across the wire: the Miami Marlins plan to shut down their rising star 20-yr old Jose Fernandez when he reaches 170 innings. We’ve already seen the Mets manipulate Matt Harvey‘s pre-all-star start in an attempt to limit his innings and stretch him out as long as possible, and they too have talked about an innings limit for their new-found Ace (Editor Note: this was before his unfortunate UCL injury). Cub’s rising Ace Jeff Samardzija was shut down on September 8th of 2012 after reaching a prescribed limit that the team had set. And our own Jordan Zimmermann worked on a 160 inning limit and was shut down in late August of 2011 after recovering from Tommy John surgery. And there’s more: see the following for a quick summary of Operation Shutdown 2013:

So what’s the common theme here? When the Nats shutdown Zimmermann in 2011 they were not a playoff team. Nor were the Cubs with Samardzija in 2012. And this year clearly the Mets and Marlins are not playoff teams. BUT, when the Nationals in 2012 were clearly a playoff team and did a similar innings-limit shutdown with Stephen Strasburg, there was (and continues to be) national media uproar over the decision. The Nats (and by proxy Mike Rizzo) were described as “arrogant” by more than one “anonymous GM” (aka gutless chicken-sh*t executive who wouldn’t go on the record criticizing a colleague who had to make a pretty significant, difficult decision), as dutifully and gleefully reported by bloggers and writers who go to great lengths to state their own opinions on the matter. And it didn’t take but a few hours after the Game 5 meltdown (and in some cases even before then) for said writers to pipe up yet again with their opinions that the NLDS absolutely would have turned out differently if Strasburg was pitching.

And keep in mind, Strasburg was coming back from an injury! Nearly every one of these 2013 Operation Shutdown guys weren’t ever hurt; they were just limited by executives who may prescribe to the Tom Verducci effect of increased workloads (whether or not you agree with the principle, which has been disproven on the macro level yet Verducci maintains an 80% successful prediction rate. Discussion on both sides from a January 2013 post here).

Why the hypocrisy? Because there’s a huge double standard here. Its “OK” to shutdown your ace for health-related or longevity-related issues …. but only if your team sucks and you’re not making the playoffs. However, if you are making the playoffs and you follow-through on your season-long stated intention to shutdown your star pitcher coming off a major arm injury … then you’re an idiot. At least, that’s my interpretation of the media reaction in September of 2012 of Strasburg-shutdown versus Samardzija-shutdown.

Its ok to ignore doctor’s recommendations and attempt to blow out your 24-yr old’s arm again so that he can make one or two post-season starts … because, hey, Flags fly forever, and you may never get back to the playoffs. I think this statement encapsulates the argument very simply; some people value making the playoffs for one year far above the long-term health of one particular baseball pitcher’s arm. People with these opinions are gleefully watching our team struggle in 2013, and I’ve seen more than one opinion posted that say this is “karma” on the Nats for shutting down Strasburg last year. Really? Karma? Not the 29th ranked offense in the league as being the root of all our troubles right now?

The point is this: if you were against an innings limit for Strasburg … then you should stand up and say you’re against innings limits for any pitcher. All the “well we don’t know if shutting down a pitcher helps or hurts” arguments (which are all entirely true; we don’t have any idea if Strasburg’s career will be 3 more years or 15, and we have no idea if the 2012 shutdown will help, hurt or have no impact), shouldn’t be affected by the team’s place in the standings. If you’re against the Strasburg shutdown on principle, then you should be equally outraged that the Mets, Cubs, and Marlins plan to “tank” games in August that their aces would have been scheduled to pitch as well.

I’m sure that we’ll continue to hear more “shutdown dates” being announced for the slew of young power arms that are making 2013 increasingly the “Year of the Rookie pitcher.” None of these names have been mentioned yet, but rookies with decent MLB workloads such as Shelby Miller, Gerrit Cole, Zach Wheeler, Jacob Turner, Tony Cingrani, Alex Cobb, and maybe even guys like Jarred Cosart, Chris Archer and Martin Perez could all be names that teams look to protect going forward. And some of these guys (especially Miller and Cole) are pitching significant innings for playoff contenders, and are going to blow by 2012 innings numbers by mid-August. Will we see another Strasburg-esque shutdown media blitz in 2013?

Post Script added 7/26/13: we have announced that our own Taylor Jordanwill be facing an innings limit in 2013, and it is coming up very fast. “20-30” more innings, or roughly 5-6 more starts. That hopefully will coincide with Ross Detwiler‘s return from the D/L but it may not, forcing the team to scramble to fill that rotation spot. Update: this on 8/18/13 after Jordan suffered a sprain that would have made it impossible to come back anyway. Shut down at 142 total innings for 2013.

[After the fact post addition: ESPN’s Jerry Crasnikposted about the same topic on 8/7/13, with great updated innings counts for pitchers on contending teams. He says the same things I’m saying here. Sept2013 I updated this post whenever a new team announced they were shutting down a player].

Santana to miss 2013 and end his Mets career on a sour note. Photo via wikipedia/flickr user slgckgc

Earlier this month I published an updated version of the “Starter Dollar per Win” analysis that I maintain and update on an annual basis. In that post, I listed some of the worst free agent starter contracts ever signed (among them Kei Igawa, Jason Schmidt, Oliver Perez, Darren Dreifort). However I did not mention Johan Santana among these awful deals because it looked like he could at least finish out the last year of his deal and increase his per-win values.

Last week we learned that Santana has a torn shoulder capsule and is likely to miss the entire 2013 season. This is the last guaranteed year of the 6 yr/$137.5M contract that he signed with the Mets after his fantastic early-career stint with Minnesota and it seems almost certain that he’ll be looking for work elsewhere in 2014, if he continues to play at all (this being a re-tear of the same Anterior Capsule that sidelined him for all of 2011 and his third arm/shoulder surgery overall).

In his 6 years in New York, he had one great season (the first), two entirely missed due to injury, two with good results but still injury curtailed, and one (2012) that was entirely mediocre and injury curtailed after he (foolishly?) threw 130+ innings to chase a no-hitter. That’s not entirely a great return on $137.5M.

This contract is now officially “Worse” than the infamous Denny Neagle deal (19 wins for a 5yr/$55M deal) and significantly worse than the even more infamous Mike Hampton deal (56 wins for an 8yr/$121M deal) on a dollar per win basis.

The cautionary tale is a familiar one: we all know that pitchers are health wildcards to begin with. But guaranteeing many years and tens of millions of dollars to these injury wildcards is lunacy. (Ken Rosenthal wrote a similar story on 3/29/13 on this same topic). I now count Thirteen 9-figure contracts that have been given out to starting pitchers in the history of the game, and of the contracts that are closer to the end or finished its hard to find any of them that the signing team would do over again.

Santana, Barry Zito, Hampton, Kevin Brown and Daisuke Matsuzaka were all 9-figure deals that did not live up to the money (Matsuzaka’s 9-figure haul includes the posting fee).

Matt Cain, CC Sabathia, Cliff Lee and Yu Darvish (again, including his posting fee) are all 1-2 years into longer term 9-figure deals with (admittedly) satisfying levels of performance thus far.

Felix Hernandez, Zack Greinke, Cole Hamels and now Justin Verlander as of 3/29/13 are all starting 9-figure deals in 2013 or later. Adam Wainwright just missed the cutoff; his new deal totaled $97.5M.

How does this affect the Nationals? Well, in 2017 Stephen Strasburg is likely to become a free agent (lets be honest with ourselves; his agent is Scott Boras, his agent is aggressive to the max, wants to explore every possible free agency aspect, and rarely if ever allows his clients to agree to contract extensions, team friendly or otherwise; Strasburg is going to hit the FA market). Based on the list of arms above, and assuming Strasburg doesn’t get re-injured in the next few years you have to think he’s going to be in line for a 9-figure deal of his own. What do you do if you’re the Nats? Do you pay the man, knowing that the likelihood of a 9-figure deal being a good deal for the team is very slim, or do you let him walk and let some other team pay him that money and assume the franchise crippling risk?